Bright and glowing

"I am noting how happy and light (light as in gentle, and bright and glowing) our daily interactions are compared to the past."

—Dominique Trussler

photo by Julie D, gingerbread train __

Live purely and sweetly

There are some homeschoolers who are so obsessed with the evils of school, the unfairness of some bygone situation or other that they or their children were involved in (or relatives, or friends' kids), that they cannot live a day without reliving that incident, emotional package and all. They obsess on school. They homeschool Because of School. When asked about homeschooling, they talk about school. . . . . If it is horrible, turn away from it and prove that life can be lived purely and sweetly without it. If life is lived in reactionary response to a thing, the thing is still the centerpiece of life and thoughts.

Sixth post down, archived discussion from 2001
photo by Julie D.

Look for moments

Karen James wrote:

Look for moments in the day that are good—especially the ordinary moments. Pause and appreciate them when you see them. Let them set the mood for how you move forward. Listen for pleasing sounds. A giggle. A child's breath. Your own heartbeat. Some music. Close your eyes, notice and appreciate those sounds. Find the ones that make you smile. Let your smile soften your mood.

—Karen James

SandraDodd.com/badmoment
Original quote from a post at Always Learning, November 26, 2015.
photo by Julie D
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Live, see, and think

Unschooling isn't another version of a curriculum, that will take four hours a day. Unschooling is a different way to live and to see and to think.

SandraDodd.com/seeingitcomments
photo by Julie T

Being a child's friend

Pam Sorooshian, on being a child's friend:

There is nothing wrong with wanting to be your child's friend. Do what it takes to earn their friendship—be supportive and kind and honest and trustworthy and caring and generous and loyal and fun and interesting and interested in them and all the other things that good friends are to each other. Be the best 40 year old friend you can be (or whatever age you are).


People use "I'm the parent, not a friend," as an excuse to be mean, selfish, and lazy. Instead, be the adult in the friendship. Be mature. You've BEEN a five-year-old and your child has not been a forty-year-old, so you have an advantage in terms of long-term and wider perspective. Use that advantage to be an even better friend. You know how to be kinder and less self-centered and you know how beneficial it is to put forth the effort.

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/friend
photo by Sandra Dodd, of six-year-old Adam and his mother and friend, Julie

Good things swirl

Debbie Regan wrote:

Children prosper when parents are able to provide enough sense of safety, calmness and support, that feelings of peace and joy are close at hand. From there the business of childhood—exploring and learning about the world can progress unimpeded by stress. Stress is a distraction from the natural flow of curiosity, focus, joy, excitement, engagement, creativity, emotional awareness, learning...

The more peace and mindfulness I bring in my home, the more all those good things swirl around.

—Debbie Regan

The quote was in a passing discussion, but you might like this: SandraDodd.com/peace/becoming
photo by Julie D
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Fill up your family

"You can't give what you don't have," some people say, and if you want your children to give generosity and kindness and patience to others, you should give them so much they're overflowing with it.

It works with respect, too.


SandraDodd.com/spoiledkids
photo by Julie D, of Holly and Adam
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The surest path

Leah Rose wrote:

Learning to parent mindfully, keeping my focus in the present, making choices towards peace, towards help and support, is not, as it turns out, much of a gamble or a risk. It is the surest path to connection and trust.

—Leah Rose

SandraDodd.com/later/unschooling.html
photo by Julie D
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Ease into change

Instead of just going from lots of control to "do whatever you want," a really sweet way to do it is quickly but gradually. Quickly in your head, but not all of a sudden in theirs. Just allow yourself to say "okay" or "sure!" anytime it's not really going to be a problem.


If something isn't going to hurt anything (going barefoot, wearing the orange jacket with the pink dress, eating a donut, not coming to dinner because it's the good part of a game/show/movie, staying up later, dancing) you can just say "Okay."

And then later instead of "aren't you glad I let you do that? Don't expect it every time," you could say something reinforcing for both of you, like "That really looked like fun," or "It felt better for me to say yes than to say no. I should say 'yes' more," or something conversational but real.

The purpose of that is to help ease them from the controlling patterns to a more moment-based and support-based decision making mindset. If they want to do something and you say yes in an unusual way (unusual to them), communication will help. That way they'll know you really meant to say yes, that it wasn't a fluke, or you just being too distracted to notice what they were doing.

SandraDodd.com/eating/control.html
photo by Julie D
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Wholehearted change

The purpose of unschooling is not to change the parents; it's to provide a personalized learning environment for each child. Doing that does change the parents, though, if they do it wholeheartedly.
SandraDodd.com/change
photo by Julie D
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Your child's friend

Pam Sorooshian, on being a child's friend:

There is nothing wrong with wanting to be your child's friend. Do what it takes to earn their friendship—be supportive and kind and honest and trustworthy and caring and generous and loyal and fun and interesting and interested in them and all the other things that good friends are to each other. Be the best 40 year old friend you can be (or whatever age you are).


People use "I'm the parent, not a friend," as an excuse to be mean, selfish, and lazy. Instead, be the adult in the friendship. Be mature. You've BEEN a five-year-old and your child has not been a forty-year-old, so you have an advantage in terms of long-term and wider perspective. Use that advantage to be an even better friend. You know how to be kinder and less self-centered and you know how beneficial it is to put forth the effort.

—Pam Sorooshian

SandraDodd.com/friend
photo by Sandra Dodd, of six-year-old Adam and his mother and friend, Julie

Happy heroes

When children choose foods

A mom named Evie wrote:

"Everything I've read about has really happened. The first couple of days, my youngest ate nothing but Twinkies and Spider-Man snacks. Then, amazingly enough, he got up the next morning and asked me for grapes for breakfast. You could have knocked me over with a feather! It truly didn't seem possible until I experienced it for myself." —Evie

How does it balance out?
photo by Julie van der Wekken

Produce Happiness

Having a happy home comes from the creation and maintenance of happy conditions. Produce as much as you can. You'll fill yourself up and it will overflow, and your family might even have enough to share with friends and strangers!


That was written in explanation of having shared a quote I got from watching "Being Erica," a Canadian TV series, in which Dr. Tom (one of the main characters) quoted George Bernard Shaw: "We have no more right to consume happiness without producing it than to consume wealth without producing it."

photo by Julie D
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How and why

People can only learn what connects to what they already know. The more one knows, the more one can learn. And THAT is how, and why, strewing works.



SandraDodd.com/connections
photo by Julie D
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All ages

"In the real world, we get to choose friends based on interest. And that's what unschoolers get to do. There are classes and park days and online friends and people of all ages that homeschoolers interact with."

—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/socialization
photo by Julie D
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How and why

People can only learn what connects to what they already know. The more one knows, the more one can learn. And THAT is how, and why, strewing works.



SandraDodd.com/connections
photo by Julie D
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That's all. Just that.

If I saw [unschooling] simply as a means to get them to college, I might be nervous. I see it as a way to live. I don't see it as keeping the kids out of college or hampering their opportunities for formal learning if they go that route. I'm not holding college up to them or me as "the goal." The goal, for me, is that they will be thoughtful, compassionate, curious, kind and joyful. That's all. That's not asking much, is it? I think if those traits are intact in them, they will continue to learn their whole lives.

SandraDodd.com/interview
photo by Julie D
Words 1998; Image 2013.

Options and choices

If the parent finds ways to present options and choices and the children can say "Yes, more!" or "No more now," then each child will learn every day.

Seeing Children without Labels

Choices
photo by Julie D
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Pure gold

"So I invite you to try a little bitty bit of unschooling: say yes more. Not about everything all the time and not at random—question your "Nos" and "laters", your "have tos" and "shoulds" and rethink some of those. Find more options, more ideas, more ways to say yes. Just that. And life with your children gets sweeter and more peaceful. That's pure gold."

—Meredith Novak

SandraDodd.com/meredithnovak
photo by Julie D
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